I think giving rets SPECIFICALLY a raid-utility spell would maybe increase our utility as a SPEC. But nonetheless, if we are at the bottom of the charts, raid utilities won't change that.
All of our utility spells are share with prots/hpals, which gives us as a spec no unique raid-bonus utility. We don't even bring our own buff (The 4% physical damage hardly counts).

I think they should bring back Retribution Aura and make it some sort of Raid-benefit CD like Stormlash Totem. Maybe make it return like 50% of the damage taken by all players in the raid to the caster, something that would be extremely useful on a fight such as Heroic Will with the permanent AoE on the ground. If not that, at least make it benefit our dps a slight bit more by some random mechanic.

While I like the idea of bringing back retribution aura the way you described it... uh would be way to OP in pvp.
Much of the ret damage issues are from pvp balance already...

Maybe only non-targetted damage? That might be a bit more fair for PvP and can still maintain some weight in PvE.

They just need to improve the RAW damage. They keep playing around with burst like it will help anyone when all it's doing is just taking a shit and cleaning it up (Figuratively, that is).
10% CS damage, 20% TV damage, a bit of everything. Then it's all good.

The main thing that i think is keeping Blizzard away from the idea of ever putting rets near the top is the fact that we are a Hybrid Class. It seems like they always want to keep the solid dps classes (Hunters, mages, warlocks and rogues) on top, while randomly just tossing around the Hybrid classes. And usually, we get the short end of the stick. Rarely does a Hybrid class end up on top; and when they do, they get mega nerfed afterwards as "punishment".

The main thing that i think is keeping Blizzard away from the idea of ever putting rets near the top is the fact that we are a Hybrid Class. It seems like they always want to keep the solid dps classes (Hunters, mages, warlocks and rogues) on top, while randomly just tossing around the Hybrid classes. And usually, we get the short end of the stick. Rarely does a Hybrid class end up on top; and when they do, they get mega nerfed afterwards as "punishment".

Except that's not true at all and you'd know it if you were doing any high-end raiding or even just casual PVPing in Cata. It's also not true now either, because Fury Warriors are "hybrids" but they're up there in PVE along with affliction warlocks and arcane mages. Hunters are a pure, but they're not up there. it has nothing to do with being a hybrid or not being a hybrid.

Maybe only non-targetted damage? That might be a bit more fair for PvP and can still maintain some weight in PvE.

They just need to improve the RAW damage. They keep playing around with burst like it will help anyone when all it's doing is just taking a shit and cleaning it up (Figuratively, that is).
10% CS damage, 20% TV damage, a bit of everything. Then it's all good.

The main thing that i think is keeping Blizzard away from the idea of ever putting rets near the top is the fact that we are a Hybrid Class. It seems like they always want to keep the solid dps classes (Hunters, mages, warlocks and rogues) on top, while randomly just tossing around the Hybrid classes. And usually, we get the short end of the stick. Rarely does a Hybrid class end up on top; and when they do, they get mega nerfed afterwards as "punishment".

To us, as players, it seems so easy to buff our sustained damage but just giving small buffs to things like CS, RV, Exo, etc. Small buffs to stuff we're using all the time. To the devs they feel like doing that would require a major nerf to our burst and they've said things before like "Wings as a 5 minute cooldown for more sustained damage, that feels wrong" or "reducing wings to 10% damage? That wouldn't go over well" etc. Things of that nature are thrown around all the time. While it would suck to have iconic abilities nerfed some (as if we haven't seen it enough in the last 3 years) it sucks even more hardly being competitive damage wise and having utility that saves us in VERY specific instances. I just don't understand where the disconnect is between the devs and the players and it's really frustrating.

Except that's not true at all and you'd know it if you were doing any high-end raiding or even just casual PVPing in Cata. It's also not true now either, because Fury Warriors are "hybrids" but they're up there in PVE along with affliction warlocks and arcane mages. Hunters are a pure, but they're not up there. it has nothing to do with being a hybrid or not being a hybrid.

Fury warriors and other such classes with 2 dps specs are what I'd consider "half hybrid". I'm not talking about this tier (for this statement), but for a overall view. Hunters were up there during DS, and other tiers, same as DK's were OP during the first tier of wrath. Remember this is my opinion; feel free to disagree with it but I find it to be accurate.

The issue with ret "buffing" is that we scale insanely high.
Increase base damage slightly then damage will be higher (duh), haste will be better, mastery will be better and str will be better.
IMO would make more sense to rework our mastery (too late now..) since that's what makes or breaks all of our abilities, or you could mastery only work off finishers and buff the fuck out of mastery scaling so we have a decent finisher and not a wet noodle finisher.
At the moment if they buff anything it seems like it's going to scale out of proportion too quickly, maybe that's what they fear will happen... still doesn't justify that ret is so far behind on single target dps when that's what we're supposed to be "good" at...

Fury warriors and other such classes with 2 dps specs are what I'd consider "half hybrid".

There's no such thing as a "half-hybrid" lol. You couldn't even make up a reasonable definition for that made-up term. A hybrid can do more than one role; they can switch between roles. That's the definition of a hybrid.

Originally Posted by Saferis

I'm not talking about this tier (for this statement), but for a overall view. Hunters were up there during DS, and other tiers, same as DK's were OP during the first tier of wrath. Remember this is my opinion; feel free to disagree with it but I find it to be accurate.

Shadow Priests were definitely one of the top DPS in PVE. Boomkins were also really good. Where was the hybrid tax then? Oh wait, blues already said no such thing exist.

There's no such thing as a "half-hybrid" lol. You couldn't even make up a reasonable definition for that made-up term. A hybrid can do more than one role; they can switch between roles. That's the definition of a hybrid.

Shadow Priests were definitely one of the top DPS in PVE. Boomkins were also really good. Where was the hybrid tax then? Oh wait, blues already said no such thing exist.

As i mentioned, other hybrid classes have their "15 minutes of fame". Some more than others. But the reason behind my statement has to do with the simple "blizzard nerfs one spec and buffs another" during every new tier. If one class has three specs (AKA the pure dps classes as listed earlier), odds are one of their specs will be nerfed, but one buffed. As i stated with "half-hybrid" earlier, (Note: the term is not to be taken literally but only to compare to the group I listed as "hybrids"), a warrior for example will have 2 dps specs, one being nerfed and the other maybe being buffed in a tier. The occasions where these "half-hybrid" classes are not up to par is when one spec is nerfed and the other isn't touched. Then drop down to us, that being "hybrids", where we don't have the option of switching to another similar spec to make up for one that has been nerfed since we have only ONE spec with our role.

If you'd consider it as, let's say, blizzard works around with a spec every tier but buffs it every three. Then rets will only be buff every three tiers, while warriors every 1 or 2, while pure-dps classes EVERY tier.

This is all statistical and based on no real or past patterns. Again, like I said, if you don't agree with me, then so be it.

Originally Posted by Huntingbear_grimbatol

The issue with ret "buffing" is that we scale insanely high.
Increase base damage slightly then damage will be higher (duh), haste will be better, mastery will be better and str will be better.
IMO would make more sense to rework our mastery (too late now..) since that's what makes or breaks all of our abilities, or you could mastery only work off finishers and buff the fuck out of mastery scaling so we have a decent finisher and not a wet noodle finisher.
At the moment if they buff anything it seems like it's going to scale out of proportion too quickly, maybe that's what they fear will happen... still doesn't justify that ret is so far behind on single target dps when that's what we're supposed to be "good" at...

I completely agree with your idea of our mastery only working on finishers. That would really improve things consistently. I mean TV's don't really hit as hard as the work spent to charge HP up to use it, but this is because blizzard threw mastery onto several spells.

Rets don't scale well nor ever did. Stuff like warriors is what always did tho (current arms aside). So using that as an excuse, to fail and aknowledge the dire straits like early tier11, FL progress, maybe? next tier, is pretty poor understanding of the class mechanics tbh.

Rets dont scale well nor ever did. Stuff like warriors is what always did tho (current arms aside). So using that as an excuse is pretty poor understanding of the class mechanics tbh.

Well have a better idea what this tier is gonna look like after some items start poping up. if we can maintain 25% haste and keep growing mastery we should be doing decent as weapons start to get out of control. We SHOULD see a 30k Top end weapon this patch. Then there is praying we get a band aid buff too 2hspec/mastery scaling when they do balancing on ptr. not holding my breath though.

What I'm saying is that if they increase the power of one of our abilities now mastery + haste is going to have too much of an effect because everything works of mastery now. I didn't mean that rets scale good on gear like warriors do but our abilities as they are now scale well with stats which makes them hard to balance.

Was refering to devs btw not the posters here in the previous one. But ye just try sim a fury warrior for fun in bis and check the dps gains from various stats and compare to retribution, pretty pathetic really...

Ye, ya could, but was talking strictly 10man there where raidbuffs and utility are actually pretty important while the dps gap also even bigger. And for p1 progress pre 15% hastebuff ret is prolly the strongest class there is